I'm not sure if you can call it racism or colorism. But there's a general tendency to look down upon people with a darker shade in south asia. The darker your shade is, the more likelihood there is of you being looked down upon due to the rampant colorism in the subcontinent. It's why the Afghans tend to look down on the Pakistanis, who in turn look down on the Bangladeshis and Indians, and even in India, the north Indians tend to look down on the south Indians. And you can be pretty sure that, south asians, no matter from which country or region, are universally racist against blacks in general. It doesn't matter if you belong to a region with much better social development indicators, at the end of the day, people tend to take the skin complexion way too seriously in south asia. If it was purely based on social development, the Sri Lankans would have to look down on south Indians and Bangladeshis, who in turn can look down on north Indians, who in turn on the Pakistanis, who themselves can look down on the Afghans for the state of their country.
But that's a common phenomenon in the subcontinent and not the only reason, or even the main reason why the Afghans have negative sentiments towards the Pakistanis. One reason is that there is a history of bad blood between Afghans and Punjabis during the Ranjit Singh era when they had a lot of run ins with each other. The Afghans hence often use the Ranjit Singh slur word for Pak Punjabis even though the latter have no affiliation with Ranjit Singh emotionally, as compared to say the Indian Sikh Punjabis.
Another reason is due to a far more recent event. I was reading a book about the Soviet Afghan war once and remember reading an interesting anecdote in the book. When the Taliban were taking over the country, many of the militia were allegedly made up of members from the Pakistani Punjab region who spoke a language that wasn't understood by the local Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan and that was supposedly when a deep seated resentment for the "foreigner" Punjabis began to arise among the local Afghans. The tussle between Afghanistan and Pakistan goes back a long way and it's not a black and white issue where one party is good and the other is bad. But I remember reading about the reason behind a negative sentiment towards the Pakistanis, particularly Punjabis, among the local Afghans in that particular book (can't remember the name of it).
There is certainly a feeling among at least some Afghans that Pakistan is currently occupying regions that historical belonged to Afghanistan once, something that they call the "greater Pashtunistan", nevermind the people in KPK and FATA regions don't reciprocate the same feelings to be a part of Afghanistan. It's why I think Afghanistan refused to recognise Pakistan initially after independence if I'm correct.
I love how you identified the racism within the whole of SA
Just the other day I was watching a prank show where the guy joked about the dark guy that he is a bangali, machli and all the nine yard
Now some can say this was just due to history but by and large there is a revision of history going on in pakistan and Bangladesh is considered a fellow brotherly Islamic nation by majority of Pakistanis so there isn't a whole lot of nationalist hatered for Bangladesh and whenever the discussion of 1971 takes place blame is mostly on India and the fact that they misguided the brother muslims into independence or Bangladesh is ruled by Indian puppets and Muslim Bangladeshis don't feel that way about Pakistan
Does this love as fellow muslims stop the ethnic stereotypes no... so colorism at its core is still there
Same with Indians we grew up with the steryotype of dark Indians
It always came out during a Bolly wood movies when an attractive actoress would show up conversation ends up being how they are actually dark skinned and look hideous in real life instead our actoresses are much lighter thus prettier only they are not fit like their indian counterparts that's why men tend to like them
This also happened when a relative would visit india there were stories of people everywhere, imense poverty and dark skinned people
How lucky we are to be in Pakistan not to see those dark skinned people everywhere
This psychology reverses when talking about Afghans they romanticized as light skinned warriors on top of being a brother muslim nation
I mean you can talk for a whole day with a middle aged pak man and he'll tell you the greatness of this mythical,rugged light skinned warrior across the boder and if we were like them than kashmir would have been liberated a while ago the Maidani diet and Indian influences make us weak (BUT in this sacenerio I am talking about this conspiracy theory uncle so don't it as representative of whole of Pakistan)
Hell in our country Pashtuns are romanticized as these light skinned honest, warrior people
IK constantly use his Pashtuns heritage to score off of that romanticization (He only speaks urdu and punjabi btw cause he grew up in Lahore)
He uses it to perfection he is just punjabi enough for Punjabis to get behind him and not treat him as a Pashtuns nationalist but also offers them the romanticized version of a Pashtun man capable of fixing dis honesty
Atleast in Punjab a bunch of people when asked why do you like the guy
Convo starts with he is a pashtun partly making him almost geneticaly capable of solving corruption and dishonesty due to his pashtun values
It's just funny how these steryotypes work man
Do Indians have this same romanticization of Pakistanis or the wars between the nation's have helped in Indians calming down with their colorism and romanticization ?
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